A. Related Applications
There are no applications related hereto heretofore filed in this or any foreign country.
B. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to surgical devices and more particularly to a tubular clip that is deformed to fasten adjacent portions of tensioned elastomeric ligation tubing in a permanent fashion.
C. Description of Prior Art
In the practice of animal husbandry and surgery, ligation has long been known to cause the atrophy of body parts outwardly of a ligation site. Such areas, when cut off from systemic control and supply, atrophy quite readily and the ligation site generally heals effectively by the time of atrophy.
The ligation process is well suited to castration of animals having testicles carried in an external scrotal pouch, such as bovines, horses, goats and sheep. The process is bloodless and requires no opening or exposure of body tissues or cavities, to alleviate many of the problems associated with ordinary surgical procedures such as bleeding, microbal invasion, insect infestation. The ligation castration process is commonly applied differently with different animals, with endless elastomeric bands commonly being used with smaller animals and bands of selectable length, formed by fastening the looped ends of latex surgical tubing together, with larger animals. A process of the latter type and a tool for use in such a process was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,691,704 issued Sep. 8, 1987 to the instant inventor.
When latex surgical tubing is used in ligation castration, that tubing is subject to substantial tensive force. A clip that holds the two ends of the ligation material must resist and accommodate this force without damaging the tubing at the connection site to be effective. The problem of interconnecting the ends of ligation tubing is further enhanced by the fact that the tubing must remain in substantially its original tensive condition during the atrophy process of some two or three weeks or more, and during this time, the ligation material is being carried by a living, moving animal which may subject the ligation site to various disruptive external forces and conditions. The results of such conditions on ligation clips is further accelerated by the elastic and resilient deformability of the latex tubing which aid tubing motion relative to a rigid clamping structure.
Ligation castration, however, requires a very secure and permanent fastening of the ends of elastomeric ligation material. If that fastening is not secure, the material may loosen and then not only fail to accomplish its purpose, but also cause secondary problems that may effect an animal's health or even its life. The instant invention seeks to provide a new and novel clip for such ligation process that provides the requisite fastening of elastomeric surgical tubing.
Various methods of fastening together the ends of a band of elastomeric ligation material have heretofore become known and used. Tying or knotting is commonly used by surgeons but is not particularly effective firstly, because it is difficult to fasten the ends of elastomeric tubing together when they are under substantial tension, and secondly, because such fastening in elastomeric material is not particularly permanent and tends to allow relative motion of fastened portions responsive to changing forces, often to allow reduction of tension in ligation material or even its displacement or removal. Knotting or tying also tends to provide a connection that has substantially less strength in the connection area than the strength of the tubing being interconnected.
Clips that have become known for fastening elastomeric ligation materials have generally provided a deformable metallic structure of an annular or cylindrical nature defining a channel through which portions of tubing to be joined are passed, with some adjacent deformable clip portion to fasten the tubing within the clip channel. After fastening deformation of such clips, generally clip portions and both portions of the tubing are in surface adjacency with each other, so that one tube may move relative to the other and either tube may move relative to the clip. Such an annular grommet-like device was disclosed in the aforesaid U.S. Pat. No. 4,691,704. This type of clip in general is operative to fasten elastomeric ligation tubing, but on occasion, depending especially upon its manner of use, the clip may not completely and securely interconnect the ends of ligation tubing and may allow some motion of the interconnected portions.
The instant invention seeks to alleviate this problem by providing a clip that fastens each tube end portion independently within the clip structure and does not allow or depend upon adjacency of any portions of the two tubes for its connecting junction. The clip further does not provide any type of completely enclosing annular structure so that its two side portions may be bent upon each individual tubing portion being fastened. This provides a substantially greater fastening area between tube and clip than is provided by a traditional clip having annular structure defining a completely closed periphery that extends about the tubes, while yet maintaining an axial length of the clip within reasonable and desirable limits. My improved clip differs from clips heretofore used with elastomeric ligation tubing in these aspects.